The art of attention

While there’s a growing interest in the science of attention, there will always be an art to putting the discoveries into practice.

Just as with physical exercise, we have to find attentional exercises that we will do — and then actually do them consistently in order to experience the benefits.

This is the premise behind my new podcast The Art of Attention hosted by The WCBE Podcast Experience.

Guests share their strategies for cultivating focus, self-regulation, and resilience.

Hear from experts who are exploring ways we can inhabit our lives more fully and compare notes with people who practice deciding what to pay attention to — more often than never.

In the first episode, I talk wtih Dr. Judson Brewer about navigating everyday addictions with curious awareness and the power of understanding what drives the behaviors we regret but keep repeating.

Ways to listen: 

• The WCBE Podcast Experience
• Insight Timer
• iTunes
• SoundCloud
• Spotify
• Stitcher

Recent attention grabbers

• The value of seeing a mind in meditation
  
  My first podcast guest, Dr. Jud Brewer, grabbed my attention several years ago by using real-time neurofeedback to help clarify their understanding of mindfulness exercise instructions — specifically the difference between thinking about a sensation and investigating it directly.
  
  Anderson Cooper even tried this out one time on 60 Minutes. 
  
  Check out the show notes for our conversation to explore some of Dr. Breweer's other current projects. 
   
• We don’t just feel emotions. We make them.
  
  Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions are Made, talks with Ezra Klein about how we convert a rich "population of sensory instances" into concepts. She says, "We become very proficient at making concepts on the fly that have been bootstrapped into our brains during development. That’s how we learn to make sense of sensations.”
  
  From her perspective, mindfulness practice involves "taking an experience of anger or sadness or happiness or joy and deconstructing it into its parts. Some of the ingredients are the physical sensations that come from the body’s [efforts to regulate itself]." 
   
• The lost art of concentration: being distracted in a digital world
  
  "We check our phones every 12 minutes, often just after waking up. Always-on behavior is harmful to long-term mental health, and we need to learn to hit the pause button."
   
• The Mind, Explained
  
  I'm really enjoying this Netflix documentary series from the folks behind Vox's Explained and Today, Explained. These are fresh, engaging takes on some of my favorite themes — memory, dreams, anxiety, and of course mindfulness — grounded in science and narrated by Emma Stone. 

• How to become an exceptionally good listener
  
  Clinical psychologist Nick Wignall shares a number of practical, but powerful ways to practice becoming a better listener. 
   
• Want a brain that's 7 years younger?
  
  Inc.com contributor Jessica Stillman describes an interesting neuroscience study that compares the brains of experienced meditators with those of people who haven't been meditating. If you're on Twitter, I highly recommend following her. 
   
• How Outrage Is Hijacking Our Culture, And Our Minds
  
  Hidden Brain explores "how the satisfactions of outrage affect our politics, our communities, and our minds."
   
• The loneliness epidemic 
  
  From The Ezra Klein Show: "As US surgeon general from 2014 to 2017, Vivek Murthy visited communities across the United States to talk about issues like addiction, obesity, and mental illness. But he found that what Americans wanted to talk to him about the most was loneliness."

Saturday morning retreat

Discover how making a habit of paying attention differently makes it possible to feel more at home in your life, even in the midst of discomfort, confusion, and holiday-related stress.

Come Back to Your Senses through the Holidays
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Amelita Mirolo Barn, 4395 Carriage Hill Lane, Upper Arlington
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Mindfulness practice is about exercising your attention before the challenges of life hit. It's not about getting an exemption from difficulty. It's about developing greater capacities for responding to inevitable discomforts without making them worse. It's also about savoring comfort, ease, and joy when they're available.  

Spend an interactive morning exploring various multi-sensory approaches to mindfulness. This one will be rejuvenating. Register with a friend. 

Practice Groups

Upcoming practice session dates: 

• November 6, 13, 20
• December 4, 11, 18

Sessions include guided exercises, practice in silence, and discussion. All experience levels and meditation strategies are welcome.

Email or call (614) 284-9618 for address and parking details. 

• Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Look for my guided meditations in the Brightmind and Insight Timer apps 
• Request a 15-minute chat to discuss mindfulness coaching in person or by phone, Skype, or Zoom
• Recommend an attentional fitness workshop where you work

Take care,

Daron